A friend recently expressed a desire for high tea. A cup of tea at Mirador, the restaurant atop the impossibly chic boutique Forty Five Ten that Tim Headington recently added to his downtown Joule hotel-centered empire, is not high tea, exactly, but it’ll do. It’ll do very well.
Two months into their run, reservations for the Thursday-Saturday dinner service were either 9 p.m. or two weeks from never. (That’s changed.) But during the week there was lunch, of course, an impossibly perfect enticement for the ladies-who-lunch set. And there was simply tea.
In the luxe dining room perched like a gem in a turret, you want to wear pearls to match the tempered opulence of colored glass swirled like candy-cane stripes, fuchsia-colored orchids, and high-gloss art.
But even without setting foot there, in those hours in the afternoon when what you want is simply a parenthesis in your day, in the lounge you can take it all in. The Earl Grey is a very good Earl Grey.
Sit on a settee—recline if you’d like—and lift a cup of rather lovely china to your lips, returning it to the low table as you watch the art piece twirl gyroscope-like in the valet circle that seems far too big, a breath-taking extravagance given the real-estate footprint, though no bigger than the enormous eye-catching eye on a patch of grass adjacent (and, more importantly, crucial to the opulence).
The whipped ricotta is very nice—sprinkled with dried nori, studded with pistachios and subtly marinated fruit, and made to spread on grilled sourdough. The cod croquettes are wonderful with their beguiling aioli. Tea sandwiches would not be out of place.
At 6 p.m. (if it’s Mon-Wed), you will gently be asked to wend your way back down the stairs, spiraling through a world of fashion. But until then, the world is very civilized, and the busy street seems far below.
